April 2009

Seems an appropriate way to celebrate 5 years of blogging; the Studio Raglan is finished. Finally!

The basic pattern for this started with Barbara Walker's Classic Raglan Pullover from Knitting from the Top. Realistically though, I only used the numbers for the cast-on and then just knit on my own from there. I was winging it almost the whole way but with a raglan, that's easy to do.

I'm fairly happy with how it came out, even if it's just a touch too big in the arms and the chest. When I knit the next version, I'll give myself less ease in the upper back and I'll increase even more at the hipline. I keep saying that the chest and hip measurements don't need to be equal in a sweater, but I shy away from really just going for it. Next time I'll just do it.

I was somewhat at a loss for how to finish the neckline in a way that would complement the pink edging on the hems so I flipped through Nancy Wiseman's The Knitters Book of Finishing Techniques. Ooooh! Applied i-cord edge! Perfect height and easy to try. (The Purl Bee has a great tutorial for it.) I think it works well for this application and it allowed me to reshape some of the scoop neck wonkiness at the collarbone where I was testing out increase rates.

And 5 years of blogging! I'm kind of shocked really. Thank you all for reading! I wouldn't still be doing this if it weren't for all the comments and notes and feedback. (Actually, I would probably still be doing it, it just wouldn't be as fun.) As is the custom, please leave a comment and next week I'll randomly pick a winner who will receive a splityarn boxbag as a prize. Hurray for 5 years!

Sometimes in the 365 Days project inspiration can be lacking (did I forget to mention I'm doing year 2?) Occasionally on one of those days, a throw-away shot can inspire an entire week. So you just never know when or where that inspiration will come. You just keep plugging away and kabam! There it is.

Back in November, Minty cast on and knit an amazing sweater in under two weeks. (It's gorge, you have to go look.) When I saw how quickly it was all coming together, I thought to myself, hey! I can do that. And I could do it, I'm pretty sure, but like a lot of things I plan to do, I didn't. I came really close though.

I'd been wearing Husband Sweater #2 in my office for a few weeks and decided that I needed my own sweater to work in. It needed to be a little more feminine, with less than the 10 inches of ease that the Husband sweater has on me. I was thinking top-down raglan, three quarter length sleeves, deep scoop neck (I have that pullover-strangulation fear thing) and turned hems. Easy. I ran into Woolcott in Harvard Square and bought the last 4 balls of Hempwol (35% hemp, 65% wool) they had in Italian Plum.

I swatched, measured, cast on and knit like the wind. After a week, I had most of the body finished.

But as sometimes happens, the first problem you encounter where you have to rip back, some of the magic goes out of the project. It went like this:

Knit the body and bind off. Needs more waist shaping.Rip back and add more increases to offset womanly curves.Finish the body and bind off.Knit first sleeve and bind off.Begin second sleeve and knit to two inches before bind off, run out of yarn.Swear.Rip back both sleeves. Reknit first sleeve with less ease. Pretty!Reknit second sleeve and halfway through and still run out of yarn

Run to Woolcott to procure more yarn.No more Italian Plum.Swear. Buy pink Hempwol instead.Swear more when ripping of sleeve and body becomes necessary to add in pink hems. Stall for 2 months.Rip a few inches back on body, sub in pink, reknit and bind off.Rip back on first sleeve, sub in pink, reknit and bind off.

And that gets you to where I am right now. Half a sleeve left to knit and I'll be finished. Just in time for warmer weather and no need for sweaters. The silly part is that I've been working really hard to lose some weight and by next year, this sweater is going to be too big. Turns out the 4 balls of Hempwol would have done the trick, but then that wouldn't have been any fun, right?

As most folks know, I spend a lot of time trolling around on flickr. I love photography and all the quirky and odd things you can do to manipulate an image. A few years ago I stumbled across the Through the Viewfinder group. I was completely captivated by all the images. Seriously. All of them. It was like there wasn't a bad photographer in the group. I quietly bookmarked a few of the links found therein and filed it all under 'someday.'

A few weeks ago, the ever clever and talented Ms Soto started posting her own TtV (as the cool kids call it) photos. Ever the bandwagon jumper, I quickly followed her lead and snagged myself a old camera to use.

It's a really cheap and easy set up if you're looking to try it out. Kodak used to make the Duaflex series of film cameras where the viewfinder is a bubble-ish dome on the top of the camera. The basic TtV set up is to take a photo of the viewfinder of the Duaflex. The beauty of the whole process is that the Duaflex doesn't even have to be a functioning camera. The dust that comes on the mirror only adds to the mood of the resulting photos. You can pick up and old one on Ebay for anywhere from $2 to $20.

Once you get the Duaflex, you build what's called The Contraption. Basically it's a light blocking tube that you put between your digital camera (the top camera) and the Duaflex (the bottom camera.) You can find a ton of tutorials online on how to build one. The best place to start is the links in the main TtV flickr group page. I used the cardboard from a Ginger Ale fridge pack. After that, head outside (you'll need plenty of light) and snap away. A square crop and pinch of post-processing later and you have some funky photos!

I've had this post in my head for a few years now. I've been delaying and putting it off because ultimately, it's really hard to write. I'm sure it will be cathartic once it's out there, but for now the words don't flow easily.

10 years ago, January, my dad died of a brain tumour. It's one of those things that sort of snuck up on us and seemed to happen really quickly. He was diagnosed in the Fall of 1997 and by January 1999, he was gone. I don't talk about it much because really, what can you say. It sucks, but it happened and ultimately you have to grieve and just keep moving forward. I carry with me the things that he taught me and think about him often. My love of photography, cats and the skills to build a kitchen on my own are just some of those things. He wasn't here to see me buy my first house, or meet the man I married, but I carry his strength and corny jokes with me wherever I go.

While he was sick, and for a long time afterwards, my Mum got a lot of support from the folks involved with the National Brain Tumor Foundation. It was the first email list she'd ever joined and was her first connection with the friendship and help you can get from strangers on the internet. (Which may be why she doesn't think it weird that I met a lot of my friends online.)

To mark this 10th anniversary (April was his birthday month,) I wanted to do some special and give back a little. I struggled with how to go about it in a way that makes sense and allows my friends to get involved. I had a few ideas in mind that I'll put in play eventually, but for this year, I'm going to donate 10% of all the April sales of the Splityarn shop to the National Brain Tumor Society. Hopefully the donation will help another family like mine get some support when they need it.

On that note, this isn't exactly the happiest of shop updates, but there it is. The newest set of boxbags are up and there will be more to come. If you're not so much interested in buying anything and would rather just donate a few bucks, I'd love it if you did it in Bob Benna's name. Thanks for letting me fumble through this y'all, it means a lot to me.